The invention relates to an arrangement for treatment of wafer-shaped articles, especially silicon wafers, with a chuck for a wafer-shaped article, to which chuck is assigned a drive for turning the chuck around its axis, and with lines for supplying at least one treatment fluid and one flushing fluid.
In certain processes for treatment of wafer-shaped articles, especially (silicon) wafers, especially when flushing the wafers after they have been treated with a treatment medium, for example, with an etching fluid, problems arose in that spots formed on the wafer surface. These spots form because the (silicon) surface of the wafer-shaped article, especially a (silicon) wafer, is oxidized in the presence of water and oxygen.
The object of the invention is to prevent the formation of these "water spots".
This object is achieved with an arrangement described and claimed herein.
Because on the top of the chuck for the wafer-shaped article, for example, a (silicon) wafer, there is a hood which is supplied with an inert gas, for example, nitrogen, air which causes formation of water spots is displaced from the process space directly over the wafer-shaped article.
Because according to one proposal of the invention the hood is made independently of the chuck for the wafer-shaped article, therefore is stationary, a simple construction arises in which the process fluids and inert gas can be easily supplied. The supplied inert gas and supplied treatment fluids in one embodiment of the invention are applied through the hood, the supplied inert gas displacing the undesirable air from the process space.
In the arrangement as claimed in the invention the execution and construction of the chuck are not important for the wafer-shaped article. Any, even known constructions of these chucks can be used.
One advantageous effect of the arrangement as claimed in the invention consists in that in the hood, under the action of the rotating wafer-shaped article, a negative pressure forms which supports the cleaning action and which can be adjusted to the value which is optimum for example for flushing by the amount of feed of inert gas, the rpm of the chuck for the wafer-shaped article, and the width of the gap between the lower edge of the hood and the chuck or the wafer-shaped article.